


Nein

by The_Disaster_Tiefling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Choices, Families of Choice, Forgiveness, Friendship/Love, Gen, Magic, Memories, Promises, Self-Sacrifice, Trust, making amends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-26 02:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Disaster_Tiefling/pseuds/The_Disaster_Tiefling
Summary: A drop of mercury, a dollop of gum arabic, and a wisp of smoke…Caleb is done running - from the war, from the past, and from the family that he has somehow built around himself. However, it's not the future he's moving towards, but a promise, and a spell that will change everything.





	Nein

   Caleb was sat away from the fire, figuring that he would be seeing enough flames in the coming hours to last him a lifetime. Instead, he had gratefully accepted the cloak that Yasha had tossed in his direction after he had retreated after they’d eaten, sitting with it wrapped around himself, a single ball of light dancing above his head as he worked on his spellbook. Usually, he found the activity restful, easily losing himself in his magic and the written words, but not tonight. Not when so much rested on what spells he would have prepared for tomorrow, and yet as he worked his hands were steady, his breathing even. The fear that had been a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach since they had agreed that they were as ready as they were going to be, and that time was running out, strangely distant as he worked, occasionally glancing up to check on the others.

    At some point he had become lost in his work, because he started when Beau dropped abruptly to the ground at his side, glancing at his work, before wrinkling her nose as she always did when she wanted to feign disinterest. Unfortunately, it was an act that no longer held up, after they’d caught her all but freaking out about some of the texts she had uncovered in the Academy’s library, but his lips quirked at the act, the normality steadying him more than he cared to admit.

“What can I do for you, Beauregard?” He asked, resting a finger on the page to mark his spot, not that he needed to, but there was something comforting and grounding about the feel of parchment beneath his fingers. Just as there was comfort in the familiar greeting, and the pout that greeted his use of her full name, although she had long ago admitted that she didn’t mind.

“Fjord said I should go and bother someone else.” Caleb blinked at that, glancing across at where Fjord was sat with Caduceus going over their supplies one last time, trying to be ready for when things inevitably went wrong. Which probably explained why he’d had a little less patience than usual, as normally he seemed able to cope with Beau even at her most abrasive better than the rest of them. However, as much as he protested being labelled a ‘leader’ even after all this time, he took the responsibility of keeping them all alive very seriously, and Caleb could see it in the golden eyes now as their gaze met briefly across the fire, that he was afraid that this time he wouldn’t succeed.

“So, you chose me?” He asked, as he pulled his attention back to the monk, noticing for the first time the restless shifting, almost as though she was trying to sit still while under the influence of haste, and the way her hands kept clenching against the ground.

“If I’m disturbing you…”

“Ja, you are,” Caleb managed a small smile to take the sting out of his words, although they had got better at having conversations these days, not that it stopped him from adding quietly. “But you are welcome to stay.” To be honest, he was glad of the distraction, because his preparations were nearly complete, all but his highest-level spells, and there was a decision looming that he wasn’t sure he was ready to make, and his fingers curled against the page. Beau muttered something about him being a jerk but didn’t get up and walk away, so he figured that he had done something right. _I just hope that I do the right thing tomorrow…_ The thought crept him despite his best efforts to keep it at bay, and something must’ve shifted in his expression, because Beau leant forward, suddenly serious.

“What are you thinking about?”

“The past,” Caleb admitted after a moment, realising that there was no point in lying at this point, although it had been a long time since he had tried to hide anything from her anyway, and he found his gaze drifting across to the other side of the small camp where Nott was busy threading flowers through Jester’s hair. She would be across to do the same to him soon enough, still clinging to the belief that it would help protect them, and with so much resting on them right now, he was willing to take an advantage they could get. Besides, he could never deny her anything, especially at the moment, and his voice was soft as he added. “And the future.”

  _The future._

     It was had almost been some distance concept that he had never tried to grasp or think about. The only future he had ever seen was the knowledge, the opportunity to be able to make amends, to be able to go back and fix things. _And now I can…_ the parchment creased beneath his grip as he glanced down at it. It had taken a long time, longer than he could ever have imagined when he’d stumbled out of that asylum to get the spell and power that he needed to achieve his dream, and back then, and even just a few months ago he could never have imagined hesitating. It was all he could see, all that he had cared about, even at the cost of alienating these people who were trying to become his friends or something more, but now…

“You?” He asked almost desperately as he forcibly dragged his gaze away from Nott, turning to focus on Beau, not ready to finish that thought or to confront the fact that deep down he had already made his decision.

“The fight,” Beau replied with a shrug, tossing a throwing dart that she had pulled from her pouch from hand to hand, and the answer was so typically Beau that he couldn’t hold back a smile. He knew that she was thinking about more than that, had caught the tail end of her conversation with Jester earlier when she had asked the Cleric to send a message back to her family, just in case…and he could see it in her eyes when they came to rest on Yasha who was watching Nott and Jester, unsurprised when a moment later she echoed his own words. “And the future…”     “

“What do you see in your future?”

“Do you remember what I said back in Felderwin?” Even now there was a cautious note as she mentioned Nott’s hometown, remembering how bad things had got at that time and the memories that had been dug up. Caleb paused for a moment, fighting through the negative memories until he came upon the vague recollection of her talking about a house on the coast, with all of them living together. He hadn’t been paying attention at the time, but the words had stuck, caught by his keen mind and he nodded in answer, and she sighed, before tilting her head back to look up at the sky. “I was joking back then, mostly…but, now I can’t think of anything better.” _Because it means that we will have survived this and that we’re together and safe,_ Caleb heard the unspoken words and saw the longing in her face at the thought of being able to hold onto this. Knowing that the makeshift family that they had made with their own hands, meant the world to Beau…and to all of them who had lost their own family in some way.

“After all this, I think it sounds like heaven,” Caleb murmured. At the time he had paid little attention to the suggestion, because that had been a hellish day for more than one reason, and his gaze drifted back to Nott once more. _Fuck you, your people did this…_ They had come so far since then, and his heart ached as he realised that he could see Beau’s dream now, a clear image in his head and that he could imagine spending the rest of his life with these people. With his family, and there was a burning in his eyes that had nothing to do with the fire that danced beneath his skin, and he had to look away, a weight that had nothing to do with fear settled across his shoulders. _It’s a beautiful dream, but_ _one that I will never get to see._

“Caleb…”

“Ja?” He waited until the burning had eased before glancing up at her, startled by the intensity of her gaze, the dart now balanced between her fingers as she stared at him. It had been a long time she had looked at him like that, although the raw suspicion that had often accompanied it had eased, replaced by worry, although she would never admit it.

“What are you going to do?”

     She wasn’t asking about the future he realised as her gaze drifted to the book in his lap, and he swallowed, realising that she probably knew more about his original plans than anyone bar Nott. It was there in the way she paled slightly at his hesitation, and in the fear that she was now trying to hide with a scowl, and he sighed. “I am going to protect my family,” he whispered, giving voice to the words he hadn’t been ready to say, and giving form to the decision that he realised he had made a long time ago, in the back of a rickety cart as he bared parts of his soul to people he was only just starting to trust.

    There was a hand on his shoulder, just as there had been that fateful day and he blinked, startled to realise that he had looked away again at some point, lifting his head to find Beau was still staring at him. However, the scowl was gone now, her expression soft as she squeezed.

“Thank you for not running.” Caleb swallowed and nodded, reaching up to rest his hand on top hers, the touch grounding him as he let his gaze drift over the rest of their group. Nott had finished with Jester’s hair and had moved onto Yasha’s, having to stand on tiptoes to do it, even with the Barbarian sat on the ground, while Jester had bounced across to give the same treatment to Caduceus who seemed perfectly content to let her do what she pleased. Fjord was watching over them, listening to Jester’s excited chatter with a half-smile, although there was a watchfulness in his eyes that told Caleb that the warlock’s mind was still on what was to come. It was almost painful how much it seemed like a regular night around the campfire, apart from the watchfulness and the edge of tension that was evident even in Jester’s bubbly voice, and Caduceus’s calm smile and Caleb’s grip tightened for a moment on Beau’s hand.

_I am not running away this time…_

*

    Later that evening as one by one they all dropped off into an uneasy sleep, leaving Caleb on watch for the first part of the evening, Nugget sprawled at his side, and Frumpkin who had returned from scouting the woods around them draped in his usual position around Caleb’s neck, he returned to his spellbook. The promise echoing through his mind as he worked, the fear that had been his constant companion bleeding into resolve, his gaze drifting across to Nott who had tenderly braided flowers through his hair not long ago, before all but falling asleep against his side.

    Her forgiveness for the part he had played in what had happened to her home and family, was a balm on a soul that he had once thought beyond saving. And her belief that they would all come through this fight was the steel in his heart as turned the pages, moving resolutely past the spell that had once been all he had dreamt of. Instead, he turned to the spell that he hadn’t even told her that he had learnt, especially after she had decided, completely sober for once, that she wanted to end this as Nott. _Nott the Brave,_ he thought fondly, trying not to heed the terror that bubbled up at the thought of her, or any of them for that matter, facing the monsters from his past. However, they were all long past the point of turning back now, and as he had said all those months ago, he didn’t doubt any of them…and for the first time in years as he committed the words and movements of the spell to memory, he didn’t doubt himself.

_A drop of mercury, a dollop of gum arabic, and a wisp of smoke…_


End file.
